Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and National Security

CASE 1: NATIONAL SECURITY

C a s e 1  NATIONAL SECURITY 3 Case 1: National Security Case Study THE ATTACK on the United States on September 11, 2001 starkly raised the question of what responses to terrorist attacks are appropriate, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, these might include: • Restrictions on free speech • Restrictions on assembly • Monitoring the telephone calls and emails of: non-citizens in America; citizens with known ties to the enemy; citizens suspected of ties to the enemy; any American citizen • Extensive use of video surveillance in public places • Monitoring citizens’ and/or non-citizens’ financial activities through bank account and credit card activity • Racial profiling • Increasing surveillance at airports through invasive security machines and/or profiled screening • Allowing citizens from countries classified as harboring terrorists to enter the country, but only with significant visa and financial restrictions • Prohibiting entry for citizens from countries classified as harboring terrorists • Moving suspected terrorists into internment camps Are any of the above appropriate means of responding to, and seeking to prevent, terrorist attacks on domestic soil? Do any of the responses above become acceptable if: • There is an isolated terrorist attack in your country in which many people are killed? • There are continuous terrorist attacks carried out with the professed goal of destroying your country? • An enemy has a clearly stated objective to take over not only your country but many others? Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: WAR AND NATIONAL SECURITY 4 • A government is engaging in genocide in its own territory and is liable to do the same in your country if it succeeded in an invasion? What, if anything, should be done about citizens of your own country who come from the same ethnic or religious background as your enemy? How do these questions look from the perspective of an American? How do they look from the perspective of an Israeli? 5 Case 1: National Security Traditional Sources Compiled by Uzi Weingarten and the Editors On the Duty to Be Loyal to the Government 1. Joshua 1:16–18 They answered Joshua, “We will do everything you have commanded us and we will go wherever you send us. We will obey you just as we obeyed Moses … Any man who flouts your commands and does not obey every order you give him shall be put to death. Only be strong and resolute!” 2. 1 Kings 2:36–37 Solomon’s instructions to Shimei (who had severely disrespected his father, King David; cf. 2 Samuel 16:5–8): Then the king summoned Shimei and said to him, “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and stay there—do not ever go out from there (i.e., Jerusalem) anywhere else. On the very day that you go out and cross the Wadi Kidron, you can be sure that you will die; your blood shall be on your own head.” 3. Mishnah, Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 3:2 Rabbi Hananiah, The Deputy High Priest, taught: Pray for the welfare of the government, for if people did not fear it, they would swallow each other alive. On Privacy 4. Leviticus 19:16 Do not go about as a talebearer among your countrymen. Do not stand upon the blood of your fellow; I am the LORD. 5. Deuteronomy 24:10–11 When you make a loan of any sort to your countryman, you must not enter his house to seize his pledge. You must remain outside, while the man to whom you made the loan brings the pledge out to you. 6. Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 112a (cf. Niddah 16b) Our Rabbis taught: Seven things did Rabbi Akiba charge his son, Rabbi Joshua: My son … Do not enter your own house suddenly, and all the more your neighbor’s house … Rashi on this passage: “Do not 6 enter your house suddenly,” but rather call out to them [those inside] before you enter in case they are engaged in something private. Rabbi Yohanan, when he would go to visit [Rabbi Haninah] would knock at the door, as it says, “its voice should be heard when he comes into the sanctuary” (Exodus 28:35). 7. Babylonian Talmud, Derekh Eretz Rabbah 5:2 A man should never enter his fellow’s house suddenly. All can learn such good manners from the All-Present, who stood at the entrance of the Garden [of Eden] and called to Adam [to announce His presence], “And the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Genesis 3:9). 8. Maimonides (Rambam), Mishneh...